


i don't want to lose your love tonight

by symphony7inAmajor



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 07:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18310775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symphony7inAmajor/pseuds/symphony7inAmajor
Summary: So Adam fights sometimes.





	i don't want to lose your love tonight

**Author's Note:**

> back again with the tumblr prompts, this one #8. "do you hate me?" from [this](https://hellsdemonictrinity.tumblr.com/post/162834261565/angstfluff-prompt-list-part-2) list
> 
> omc is an invented and nameless call-up created so i didn't have to use an irl flame as a homophobe bc idk the flames super well.
> 
> i will continue the one sentence summaries until i learn how to make them. not suck.
> 
> title from "your love" by the outfield. yeah i've been naming all of these after songs i have in the playlist i made for them. so what.

So Adam fights sometimes. 

Like, guys can’t just do whatever they want to his teammates _(Brandon)_ and think they can get away with it. He has to, you know. Stand up for them. Usually that means getting in a fight. He’s tough, it’s okay.

Today, though.

Some guy on the Flames Adam doesn’t know--a call up or something--has been a real nuisance, chirping, barely-legal hits, jabs with his stick when the officials aren’t looking. Adam’s pretty fed up with him, and he can tell that Brandon’s about one more slash away from losing it.

Their line is working through the neutral zone when Brandon passes him the puck; about one second later, he hears a gasp from the crowd. The one that usually means someone’s just taken a bad hit. Adam manages to turn just enough to see Brandon lying on the ice, the call-up skating away from him.

Adam passes the puck blindly to his right, faces the guy with a scowl.

“Hey!” he yells. In his periphery, he can see Brandon trying to get up, feels fury burning in his chest. The guy laughs.

“Okay,” he says, and their gloves hit the ice.

The guy isn’t small, by any means, but he’s not as big as Adam and doesn’t have his reach. Adam bloodies his nose and blackens his eye before the linesmen can drag them apart. Adam looks up, sees Brandon watching him with an unfamiliar expression. His chest tightens.

“Hey, Lowry!” The call-up is staring at him, teeth bared in a bloody grin. “Your boyfriend too much of a pussy to fight for himself, or what?” Adam stares at him, shocked into silence. The guy laughs. Like--it’s not even a creative insult, and it’s not like Adam hasn’t heard worse before, but it’s _different_ this time. Adam opens his mouth to respond, but the other guy beats him to it. “Does he suck you off after, or does he let you--”

“Hey,” the linesman interrupts. “Locker rooms, now.” Adam glances over his shoulder one last time to see Brandon, who’s a lot closer now, who’s not looking at him, whose cheeks are flushed an angry red, and--shit. Adam wants to throw up.

He trudges down into the locker room, feeling less triumphant and more miserable. He strips off his gear quickly, and is in and out of the shower before the team gets back, excited over their win.

Brandon doesn’t look at him once.

He keeps his eyes on his hands while he takes his gear off, then stares at the floor when he goes to shower. A few guys look at Adam weirdly, and yeah, they’re the guys who were close enough to hear the exchange after the fight.

When he finishes with the media, Wheels comes over to Adam’s stall.

“Are you okay?” he asks. Adam almost asks what he’s talking about, but. It’s pretty obvious. He shrugs.

“I’m fine,” he answers, forces a smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?” _No, no I’m not okay, because Brandon hates me now because he knows and he’s never going to want to see me again and it’s my fault because I always stand up for him and I’m so obvious and--_

“I’m just saying,” Wheels says, carefully, “it’s okay if you’re not.” Adam feels a lump in his throat and swallows hard, ducks his head to hide his stinging eyes. He’s not going to cry in the locker room like he’s a stupid kid again, he’s _not._

“I’m fine,” he says again, sharp. He gets up, forcing Wheels back a step, then turns to start getting his things. Blake makes a noise like he wants to say something else, but he walks away instead.

Adam stares at the bench for a moment, takes a deep breath, and turns around to look for Brandon. He’s sitting at his stall now, still only half-dressed. He has his shirt in his hands, looking at it like he’s using it as an excuse not to look anywhere else. Adam thinks about going to him.

He doesn’t.

Instead, Adam leaves. He spends too long, probably, sitting in his car and staring at his hands on the steering wheel. His knuckles, bloodied against the guy’s helmet, are already starting to itch as they scab over. Wincing, he flexes his hands, curls them back into fists. He remembers last time he’d got in a fight, going over to Brandon’s after the game. 

Brandon had insisted he wash his cuts, Adam waving him off like he was fine--which he was, it’s not like he’d never been cut up before--but Brandon had been persistent.

He’d practically dragged Adam into his bathroom, sat him down on the toilet seat, and rummaged around in his first aid kit for disinfectant. Adam had tried very hard not to notice how careful Brandon was being, how gentle and warm Brandon’s hands were on his.

When Brandon had finished putting the last bandage on the worst cuts, he hadn’t let go of Adam’s hand. For a long moment, he’d kept stroking his thumb over the bandaid like it still needed to be smoothed out. Adam had looked up and seen Brandon watching his face. If Brandon hadn’t immediately dropped his hand like he’d been burned, saying, “Take better care of yourself, Lowry, Christ,” Adam might have pulled him down into his lap right then and there.

Probably best that he hadn’t, since the way Brandon hadn’t even looked at him after the guy had called him Adam’s _boyfriend_ was anything but encouraging. Adam shakes himself out of it and starts the car.

It’ll be fine tomorrow, probably.

It’s not.

Brandon texts him in the morning, a _sorry, can’t make lunch today. not feeling well._ Adam replies with a sad face emoji and a _get better soon!_ and doesn’t think of it too much. It’s just a coincidence, probably.

The day after that, it becomes quite obvious that Brandon’s avoiding him. At practice, he only looks at him to pass him the puck, only talks to him about the drills. When they’re not skating, he’s talking to someone else.

Adam gets out of the shower after practice to find out that Brandon’s already gone.

“Said he had some errands to run, I don’t know,” Scheifs tells him when he asks. “Figured you’d know, anyway, since you’re attached at the hip and everything.”

“Shut up,” Adam says. He’s a little surprised at how vicious that sounded, and Scheifs looks kind of shocked, too. Like, literal mouth-hanging-open surprised. “Um. Sorry.” Scheifs closes his mouth and frowns.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Brandon, would it,” Scheifs says. It’s not a question, but Adam has to deny it anyway. He needs to keep up _some_ semblance of dignity.

“Of course not,” he says, trying to sound as shocked and disgusted as possible. “Why would you even think that? No, uh, no way.” He stops before he makes an even bigger idiot of himself. Scheifs doesn’t look very impressed.

“So yes,” he says. Adam deflates.

“He’s _avoiding_ me.”

“Why don’t you just talk to him about it instead of me?”

“Because he hates me.” Adam says this with enough certainty that Scheifs looks surprised again.

“Um,” he says, “why would he hate you?” Adam rolls his eyes.

“Because,” Adam says, glancing around to make sure nobody’s listening, “I fight for him all the time.” Scheifs shakes his head, baffled.

“Okay?” He raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Why would he hate you for that? You’re standing up for your teammate.”

“That’s not it,” Adam says. “I always fight for him because I--” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “ _\--like_ him. He figured it out, when that guy said, um. Things. I saw his face after, now he won’t talk to me."

“Wow, uh, okay.” Scheifs looks like he wishes he were literally anywhere else. “So you think he hates you because you’re into him?” Adam nods, because, like, yeah. “Oh my god.” Scheifs groans and rubs his face. “Lows,” he says, earnest, “Adam, _please_ talk to him. I promise he doesn’t hate you.”

“What if he does, though,” Adam asks, and there must have been _something_ in his voice, because Scheifs gives him a sad look and shakes his head helplessly.

Adam decides in that moment that if Brandon is going to avoid him, then he’s going to do his best to avoid him _back._ For his own sake.

 

He thinks, late that night, when he hasn’t talked to Brandon all day, that maybe he can’t do it. It’s ridiculous, is what it is--he’s lived most of his life without Brandon, it shouldn’t be hard to do it again.

 

It is.

 

They have a game the next night. Adam doesn’t try to talk to Brandon during morning skate, or ask him to lunch, or _anything._ Following Brandon’s example from yesterday, he only interacts with him when he has to during drills. It’s fine. 

The game is a different story.

Okay. The game itself is fine. It’s _hockey,_ hockey’s never _hard._

It’s when Brandon gets boarded that makes Adam grind his teeth to keep from going after the guy that did it. Brandon takes a minute to get back on his skates, so Adam keeps an eye on him to check that he’s okay. Brandon notices that he’s skating off and looks--surprised?

Brandon looks between Adam and the guy that hit him, headed to the penalty box after the whistle, a furrow between his eyebrows.

Scheifs scores the game-winner on the powerplay.

Maurice tells him after the game that he’s glad Adam didn’t go after the guy, saying that they couldn’t have afforded a penalty kill like that, and. Adam’s relieved, but he feels like shit, too. If he can’t defend his teammates, then what’s the _point_ of him?

 

He and Brandon ignore each other for another two weeks.

Adam feels terrible all the time, knows he looks it, too. His beard looks terrible, his hair even worse, and he has dark circles under his eyes that just won’t go away.

He feels like he’s going through a breakup, even though there was no actual breaking up. They just… stopped talking. More importantly, there wasn’t anything to break up in the first place. They weren’t _anything._

Seeing Brandon makes him feel even worse. More than anything, he wants to _talk_ to Brandon again, get food with him, hang out at his place while he bakes, _anything._ It’s made worse by the fact that Brandon looks fine. He doesn’t look tired, or miserable, just. Blank. But Adam doesn’t remember the last time he heard him laugh. 

 

He’s starting to feel pretty sure that him and Brandon won’t talk for the rest of the season by the time they play the Flames again. The stupid call-up is still in the line-up, but it’s fine.

And it is--at least until Adam ends up on the ice with him.

He just _does not_ shut up. The entire time, he’s running his mouth about how the Jets are pansies, or pussies, or worse. Adam tunes him out, mostly, but he’s not just going after Adam.

He can see Brandon’s eyes under his visor, burning angrily every time the guy says something to him, and the guy sees it, too, redoubles his efforts. Adam doesn’t catch much of what he says to Brandon, but it seems to be mostly about _him._

At one point, during a faceoff, the guy drifts closer to Adam. He ignores him, stays focused on Brandon taking the draw, but then. “So after that last game, did he let you use his mouth, or--” 

“Shut the fuck _up,”_ Adam snarls before he can finish his sentence. The puck drops, and he goes.

Adam feels a little unbalanced after that, knowing that Brandon is probably getting it worse than he is, seeing his upset face on the bench after, turned away from any cameras, and not doing anything about it.

Second intermission comes and goes, and Brandon is called away for an interview, so Adam doesn’t see him until it’s almost time to get back on the ice. His face is cold, that blankness fixed back in place, and Adam wishes more than anything that he would at least look _angry._ Anything would be better than this, he thinks as they take the ice again.

They jump the boards, skate, pass and shoot, go back to the bench, and Adam keeps ignoring the call-up. He doesn’t care, he lies to himself. He _doesn’t._

At least, until he passes the puck to Brandon, just in time to see him get laid out in the middle of the ice. Brandon goes sprawling, and _doesn't get up._ The one thing Adam doesn’t feel when he sees that the guy who hit him was that _fucking_ call-up is _surprise._

Adam doesn’t even remember dropping his gloves, doesn’t remember hitting the guy, doesn’t remember knocking him down.

All he remembers, after, is pinning the guy to the ice, close enough to see that the guy looks _scared,_ and saying, “Don’t you _ever_ touch him again,” almost a growl.

He goes to the box.

The call-up goes to the locker room, battered and bleeding.

The trainers have Brandon back on his skates, but they’re taking him to the locker room to be safe anyway. He looks over his shoulder to Adam, looking confused, before he disappears.

The Jets win.

 

Brandon is gone by the time they get off the ice, but the doctors say he doesn’t have a concussion and they sent him home only as a precaution. Adam slumps into his stall, relieved, and checks his phone out of habit.

He has a text from Brandon. 

 _come to my place. we need to talk._ Adam stares at the text for a second, unsure if he’s dreaming or not, then gets dressed faster than he ever has before.

He’s at Brandon’s less than an hour later.

Adam’s never felt _scared_ to see Brandon before, but he does today. If Brandon didn’t know that Adam was into him before, there’s no way he doesn’t now. Brandon buzzes him in wordessly. Adam gets off the elevator and walks down the hall to Brandon’s apartment, feeling like the walls are closing in around him.

He knocks in what feels like slow motion, every movement exaggerated. Brandon opens the door.

Even though he’s scared, seeing Brandon still makes him feel better, the way he’s actually _looking_ at Adam now.

“Hi,” Adam says softly.

“Hi,” Brandon echoes. He steps back. “Come in.” It’s too formal, a way that’s never been _them._ He knows, there’s no way he doesn’t.

Brandon goes to sit on the couch while Adam takes off his shoes, leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He speaks before Adam gets a chance to sit down.

“Are you into me?” he blurts, and Adam freezes. His eyes burn and he stares down at the carpet, not wanting Brandon to see him cry. He thought before that he felt like he was going through a break-up, but at least then he still saw Brandon, Brandon didn’t _know-_ know, but he’s going to now and he’s going to ask for a trade, and--

“Do you hate me?” Adam asks in a small voice, hating how his voice cracks. Not a fucking _kid_ anymore, he reminds himself. He wipes a hand over his eyes, too hard. He still won’t look up.

Brandon makes a soft noise. “Adam,” he says, and Adam hears him get up and come to him.

Adam hates that he’s taller, that Brandon can see the way he’s crying. “I’m sorry,” he says. His voice wobbles. He tries to turn his face away, to keep himself from looking too pathetic, but Brandon catches him, bringing a hand up to cup his cheek.

“Adam,” he says again, “I could never hate you.” Then Brandon kisses him.

Adam doesn’t get a chance to reciprocate, since Brandon keeps it short and soft. He pulls back to look up at Adam, his eyes wide and soft.

“I’m sorry I avoided you,” Brandon says, sweeping his thumbs carefully over Adam’s cheeks to wipe away his tears. “I was scared that you’d figured out that I’m into you, so I tried to keep my distance, then when you started avoiding me too I thought I was right, and you didn’t want me.”

“But I was avoiding _you_ because I thought you’d figured out _I’m_ into you. I thought that fighting for you made you, like, uncomfortable,” Adam protests. Brandon laughs.

“Then I guess we’re both stupid,” Brandon says, shrugs. Adam can’t really argue with that.

“Hey,” Adam says, grinning. “You kissed me, before. You should do it again.”

Brandon smiles, and does.

**Author's Note:**

> not my fave to write to be honest, but hey. if it works.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://symphony7inamajor.tumblr.com)


End file.
